With a press release that went out a few minutes ago, Apple announced that iOS 4.2 is coming today. After much speculation and a series of GM builds, it looks like the OS is ready to go. The download links aren’t live, so we assume it’ll start rolling out at 10 AM PST.
Press release embedded below. Read more
A few hours ago the Dev Team pushed an update to jailbreak tool redsn0w, which nows allows developers (and tinkerers) to install custom bundles on iOS 4.2.1, even without having to install Cydia – which, as you may know, needs an update to work smoothly under iOS 4.2. The update to Cydia should go live soon after the release of iOS 4.2 and proper jailbreak tools for the new firmware.
The new version of redsn0w is a recommended download for developers who want to test their apps and tweaks under iOS 4.2, to ensure compatibility when the new OS will publicly come out. Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 will let you install bundles independent of Cydia; bundles can be up to 15MB in size. The Cydia app that’s included in this new version of Redsn0w is the same that was bundled with older versions, and won’t work on iOS 4.2.1 GM. Developers, however, can compile their own version of Cydia if they want.
Redsn0w 0.9.6b3 for OS X is available here.
When Apple released the first GM seed of iOS 4.2 to developers, we noticed that they implemented the possibility to create a free Apple ID inside the MobileMe settings page and even sign in to MobileMe using an Apple ID. The functionality wasn’t working back then and it still returns an error today, and we speculated Apple might be taking the necessary measures to open up MobileMe’s services to a wider audience already using an Apple ID. As noted by MacRumors last night, though, it looks like that was the first move to make MobileMe free to some iOS users, or at least some specific sections of MobileMe. Read more
If this is just an experiment, both from a pricing and technical standpoint, then I wonder what we’ll be able to play on a 3.5-inch screen in 2 years. The iOS gaming scene couldn’t be more promising.
In case you missed the whole story: Rage HD is available at $1.99 in the App Store, and it’s mind-blowing.
A few minutes ago Apple posted a new GM seed in the iOS Developer Center. The build shows that it’s a GM seed for iOS 4.2.1, with build number 8C148. Read more
Steve Wozniak is that kind of guy who has no problems in saying exactly what he thinks. He co-founded Apple, but criticizing Apple and talking about the great features of Android OS isn’t a problem for him.
That’s exactly what happened in an interview with Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf: as Engadget reports, the Woz apparently revealed that Apple was collaborating with a “well-known Japanese consumer electronics company in 2004 to develop a phone that was ahead of its time”. That would be the iPhone that was released in 2007, and it’s interesting that Steve Jobs and his team had the thing ready in 2004 and decided to put it on the shelf for 3 years. Perhaps multi-touch wasn’t ready? Perhaps because of high manufacturing costs? Who knows. Read more
Finally, Google has announced that they’ll roll out Docs editing for mobile devices in the next few days. The feature, first announced several weeks ago but never actually deployed, is now ready to go for Android and iOS devices. All you have to do to edit a document on a mobile browser (including the iPad) is pressing the Edit button in Google Docs. That’s it.
In the next few days, we’re rolling this out to English-language users around the world on Android with Froyo (version 2.2) and on iOS devices (version 3.0+) including the iPad. We’ll be adding support for other languages soon. And as before, we also support editing of spreadsheets from your mobile device’s browser.
Well done, Google. A simple implementation we were all waiting for. Check out the promo video below. Read more
Two weeks ago we reported several developers were facing issues with Mac App Store submissions, as they weren’t able to register their app’s name in iTunes Connect. At that time it looked like “name squatters” were sitting on popular app names to force developers to pick different ones, but it turned out that a major issue was lying in Apple’s system itself.
Two weeks ago, in fact, developers who had already submitted an app to the iOS App Store with a certain name weren’t able to use that same name in the Mac App Store registering process. Imagine the frustration of developers who already had iPhone apps in the App Store and wanted to submit Mac counterparts to the upcoming store. Read more
Great tip over at TUAW. Not only you’ll be able to create PDFs inside apps that support AirPrint, you’ll end up having the document available in Dropbox with just one tap.
